Sunday School: Catching Up

Looking back on my posts, I realize I haven’t posted anything “Sunday school” since late August. Back then we were going through The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, and I was posting some semblance of what I was teaching in class each week. In an attempt to begin again posting weekly what we are doing in class now, I thought I would write a (not so) brief catch-you-up-with-what-we-are-doing type of post.

We had gotten to article 14, and were having very good and profitable class dicussion when a couple of things occurred: The new class year started, and my computer did a hard crash. I thought I was safely backing up all of my data, but due to a misunderstanding of the way my back-up software worked, I had not. I finished out the class year with hand-written notes.

When the new class year started in Sept. we lost about four seniors, so I stopped the BFM lessons with article 14: The Christian and the Social Order. Actually we wrapped the last four articles all into one lesson, explaining that the first part of the document lays out what we believe, and that the latter articles define how we act in the world as a result of what we believe. In the future I plan to go through the BF&M 2000, article by article, about every other year. With a new group I wanted to start with something fresh, but I didn’t have the material I was looking for, so we looked at church music for about six weeks. This was something I was wanting to do anyway. It was a very informal Q & A format where we talked mostly about the contents of lyrics, but also about music style. We talked a bit about preferring one another in love by understanding that the older folks liked a certian style of music too. We touched on how the communion of saints touched on singing music from every age. We covered the contrasting categories of objective/subjective, God-centered/man-centered, and then we disucssed the concepts of trinitarian hymns and psalter-style hymns. We had alot of fun discussing music in general as well as the music we sang the previous Sunday morning. I would send them into the morning service with 3×5 cards and have them critique the music service for the presence or absence of what we had been discussing during the class. I am convinced that these exercises have improved their understanding of worship in music. You should never underestimate kids. They are bright, you just need to give them something so they can show you just how bright they are. If you are teaching youth in Sunday school, I would heartily recommend you spend some time going over these concepts in music. It will improve their understanding and practice of worship in church.

We are currently in our third week looking at The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis, trying to glean a better understanding of the nature of sin, temptation, and man. One reason I waited to begin the class, was that I was trying to save a buck or two, gathering up used copies hither and yon. The general lot of kids seem to be interested, and several of them are quite active in Q & A. The best part is no parents have cornered me yet wanting to know why I’m teaching their child about demons. My plan is to read one letter each week and then draw out lessons from them, and then ask questions to try to draw the students into the process.

As always, anybody with suggestions or questions, please drop me a comment. I need all the help I can get.